From: Jim Ledbury (jim.ledbury@dsl.pipex.com)
Date: Fri Oct 15 2004 - 13:43:07 BST
Scott Roberts wrote:
>But why is Darwinism
>treated as scientific? The theory is untestable, as far as I can see.
>
Sorry for butting in...
Not strictly true. There are a few retrodictions that constitute tests,
although not in the standard set-up experiment & compare results to
theory basis.
Darwin 'predicted' that there would be soft bodied Precambrian species
whose imprints were less readily preserved than the mineralized
skeletons of animals living in the Cambrian. These have subsequently
been found. He also 'predicted' that there was a land-water precursor
to the whale, again the fossil of such a creature has subsequently been
found.
Okay, I appreciate that these retrodictions are quite general in their
nature but their accuracy (although not proving neo-Darwinism) does
indicate some form of evolution as opposed to creation. Of course you
can never rule out the existence of a parameter so arbitrary it can be
fitted to any data by this method but here the basic premise that
something does not come from nothing stands up withough having to invoke
such a parameter. And such retrodictions are considerably more testable
than the vague assertions of the ilk "I can't believe a human evolves
from a fish".
Regards,
Jim
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